Nowadays, various airbags are provided in modern vehicles, which airbags are rapidly inflated during an accident and protect the passenger or the pedestrian against hitting the areas of the vehicle structure covered by the airbag or the components covered by the same like steering wheels, backrests etc. In particular airbags covering large-surface areas of the vehicle during an accident like for example side airbags extending from the A-pillar to the C- or D-pillar then have to be fastened to the vehicle structure by straps in order that the airbag, even in the inflated state, is kept in a set position and/or the geometry of the airbag is controlled during the inflation process. The fastening of the straps to the vehicle structure is subject to various legal requirements and additional requirements on the part of the vehicle manufacturer as to the load capacity under various conditions. Moreover, the fastening shall naturally be realized as assembly-friendly and as cost-effective as possible.
From EP 1 502 824 A1, a fastening of an airbag with an attachment bracket is known, in which the attachment bracket is provided with an arcuate tongue stamped out of the surface of the attachment bracket. For fastening the airbag to the vehicle structure, the tongue is inserted from one side into an opening provided at the vehicle structure and with the end of the tongue directed towards the vehicle structure it is inserted into a second opening on the other side of the vehicle structure. Due to the arcuate tongue resting against the other side of the vehicle structure the attachment bracket rests against the vehicle structure with a clamping surface exerting a clamping force. The clamping force therein is determined by the shaping and the spring elasticity of the tongue. In case, a high clamping force shall be achieved, the tongue thus needs to have an accordingly stiff configuration resulting in the disadvantage that relatively great forces have to be applied for mounting the attachment bracket, as the tongue just also has to be elastically deformed during the assembly. A further significant disadvantage of this solution is that a certain skilfulness of the assembler is required for mounting the attachment bracket, as the tongue not only has to be deformed for fastening the attachment bracket, but in addition has to be inserted with big effort into the opening and, subsequently, it has to be fixed with the arcuate end in the opening on the back side of the vehicle structure, which opening is difficult to access.
Therefore, such a fastening can be problematic in particular when manufacturing a vehicle on the assembly line and during an assembly in cramped conditions within the vehicle.